Disclaimer: I do not own Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

My Hero Academia: Entreri Gaiden

Chapter thirty-four: The three factions

President Mera of the HPSC was meeting with the top ten heroes in the nation, with Shinso and Mina being unofficial due to circumstances. As always, Mera's two assistants accompanied him. "As I'm sure all of you are now aware," Mera began in a business like tone, "The criminal gang lord Fine Wine, who as it turned out is your former classmate from UA Minoru Mineta, had been found and captured at last."

"About damn time, too," Shinso remarked, his arms folded over his chest, "I was starting to think that we'd never stop the bastard."

"What really pisses me off is how that bastard turned out to have been that pervert!" Setsuna said, "I mean he was bad enough when he creeped on me and the other girls, but to go so far as to make most villains look like total weaksauce!"

Mera nodded grimly in agreement. "Yes. In addition to capturing Minoru Mineta, we were also able to capture an estimated seventy percent of his men. However, the remaining estimated thirty percent is still at large."

Todoroki gestured to President Mera, getting his attention. "Given how much time has passed since we took down Mineta, isn't there a chance that what men of his we failed to capture has been able to regroup?"

"Yes, my sources have confirmed that all of the remains of the Fine Wine gang have indeed been able to regroup," Mera replied, "However, it's not as simple as all of them getting together in one spot and plotting revenge, I'm afraid."

Izuku, the number one hero Deku, arched a wry eyebrow at that. "...What do you mean by that, President Mera?"

"The remains of the Fine Wine gang have indeed regrouped, but into three different factions of roughly equal size to one another," Mera began to explain, drawing surprised looks from all of the heroes present for the meeting.

"So you're telling us that we now have three different gangs to worry about?!" Itsuka nearly exclaimed.

"...Yes and no," Mera replied, "Because while yes, the three three factions are different and independent from one another, all three of the factions have the same ultimate goal which is to get Fine Wine out of jail."

Momo leaned back in her seat, a bemused look on her face. "Hmph! I had figured that they would want to try and get Mineta out of jail."

"I've already called for top security to keep an eye on Mineta," Mera explained, "And I've also got surveillance monitoring Mineta's wife and daughter, in case any of the three factions tries to go after either of them for one reason or another."

"What are these three factions, President Mera?" Juzo asked.

At that prompting, one of Mera's assistants came forward and handed three vanilla folders over to Mera. "...We only have a little base info on all three factions, but at least we got the respective leaders of each faction," Mera said as he opened the first folder, revealing a photo of a slender but healthy looking young adult man with spiky crimson red hair, similar to Kirishima.

However, he had a more sinister look to his eyes, and his hair was somewhat shorter than what Kirishima had (but it was still notably long). He also sported a pair of black, slender, pointed horns that were growing out of his forehead.

"This is Makoto Veldora," Mera explained, "And out of the three faction leaders, he's the only one who has a quirk."

"The only one out of the three that has a quirk?" Tenya asked, looking surprised.

Giving the number four hero a wry look, Mera said, "Keep in mind that the three factions all consist of thugs from the Fine Wine gang that eluded capture during the raid that caught the big boss himself. Mineta had been known to recruit even the quirkless." Looking to the photo of Makoto, Mera said dryly, "But that doesn't apply to Makoto here. His quirk, called Kijin Flare, lets him conjure and manipulate black and purple flames. Sources estimate it's one of the more powerful fire quirks out there."

Izuku took a good look at the photo of Makoto. A hint of somber look entered his eyes. "...His last name is Veldora, huh?"

Mera nodded in agreement. "...Yes. We've confirmed that Makoto is the older brother of that Kolulu girl that had been driven into committing suicide by Mineta's actions. Also, we have reason to believe that, similar to the late villain Ryumaru, Makoto had no idea that his boss was responsible for Kolulu taking her own life." Taking a sheet of paper out of the Makoto folder, Mera went on, "We've confirmed that Makoto's faction is the only one of the three who has non-friendly intentions when getting a hold of Mineta."

Izuku received the sheet of paper from the Makoto folder when Mera handed it to him, gave it a quick look. "...Makoto wants to kill Mineta, probably as revenge for Mineta pushing his little sister into committing suicide." Taking another look, Izuku saw that Makoto is around the same age as the late villain Ryumaru.

After Mera got back the paper he handed to Izuku and put said paper back into the Makoto folder, he placed the second folder on top and opened it, revealing a photo of another man of age comparable to Makoto. This second man has slightly tanned skin and dark bluish hair that reached his chin. "This here is Takuya Moononi," Mera said, "At the height of the Fine Wine gang's power, Takuya here was regarded as Fine Wine's second best assassin-style thug, right after Entreri himself."

Shinso scoffed bitterly at that. "Oh great. Another Entreri-type."

"Unlike with Makoto who wants to liberate Mineta so he can kill him," Mera said, "Takuya wants to liberate Mineta so that he can help see his boss reunite the gang and lead it back to what it had prior to us taking it down. It stands to reason that Takuya is also strongly against Makoto."

Mera closed the Takuya folder and opened the third and final one, revealing the photo of an older man with long white hair pulled back into a men's ponytail, along with a white long goatee. "This here is the third and final faction leader," Mera said, "His name is Hochu Sunoni. Despite how he is quirkless and one of the oldest known members of the Fine Wine gang at sixty-two, Hochu ties with Takuya for highest number of kills scored by a single confirmed quirkless member of the gang."

"Confirmed quirkless, huh?" Mina asked.

Mera nodded in the affirmative. "There are a few notable persons who worked under Mineta that have higher kill counts but are confirmed to have quirks. Also, Entreri has the single highest known confirmed kill count out of anyone who has worked for Mineta, but we have still yet to confirm if Entreri has got a quirk or not."

The current top ten heroes took a look at the information on Hochu, were surprised that a man who was not only as old as he was but is also quirkless had been able to score as high of a kill count as he had. "...He's pretty tough for an old man," Setsuna remarked.

"The level of threat Sunoni poses stems mostly from his skill with the sword," Mera explained, "He's a master swordsman who has supposedly trained other members of the Fine Wine gang in swordsmanship. Thankfully, Sunoni isn't in his prime anymore due to age, but even so he's a very dangerous threat who we by no means can take lightly. It'll be game over for most people if they get within sword range of Sunoni."

"Does he have any priorities in getting ahold of Mineta?" Todoroki asked.

Nodding in the affirmative, Mera replied, "Yes, although he's not as focused on liberating Mineta as Moononi is. You see, Sunoni is equal parts focused on trying to liberate Mineta and trying to track down the female thug who had betrayed Mineta in the first place."

Izuku nodded in understanding at that; in their bid to protect Entreri's identity as the one who had really betrayed Mineta to the pro heroes and police as part of a deal, they 'bragged' to all of Mineta's captured men and Mineta himself how a female member of the gang had given them the info they used to bring Mineta down. They also carefully let slip to sources outside of the system that Mineta was betrayed by a member of the fairer sex.

As a result of this, they had successfully tricked pretty much all of Japan as a whole into firmly believing that it was a female thug who had leaked things about Mineta to the pro heroes and police. This way, in the event the escaped remnants of Mineta's gang aimed to get revenge for how their boss was betrayed, they would be looking for persons of the wrong gender. And to the credit of Entreri, he hasn't been seen or heard doing anything since he gave info to the heroes.

They (the heroes) are still searching all of Ushishir Island for Entreri, however.

The top ten took a look at the respective leaders of the three factions. Makoto Veldora, Takuya Moononi, Hochu Sunoni. All three of the faction leaders were high profile, highly dangerous lawbreakers, with Takuya and Hochu being criminals while Makoto being a straight up villain; due to the wording of Japanese law, only Makoto out of the three faction leaders qualified as a villain since he has a quirk.

However, simply having a quirk and thus being a villain doesn't necessarily make one of Mineta's men more dangerous than any quirkless member. In fact, the pro heroes and the police have no idea at all if Mineta's most dangerous man has a quirk or not.

The next day at Faerun High, UA's class 1-A was having their homeroom class with Shouta Aizawa, who had gotten back into the swing of things since he had taken back over the duties of being the homeroom teacher for UA's class 1-A. "Although this is coming way too soon after the last round of internships," Shouta began, "You lot will be gearing up for another round of internships in short order."

"More internships already?" Tengoh asked, looking surprised. He wasn't the only one; all of the students in class 1-A looked surprised that they would all be heading on in for another round of internships in short order.

The underground hero nodded in the affirmative. "Yes, Iida. This was decided upon due to the increased need to have more pro heroes available to handle matters related directly to rounding up the remnants of the Fine Wine gang. The idea here is that while those other pro heroes focus on cleaning up the mess that Fine Wine left behind, you kids and your pro hero mentors that you will be working under will focus on other things not related."

Shouta saw that a hand was being raised, so he called on it and saw that it was Samidare Tokoyami. "I assume my classmates and I being focused on non-Fine Wine related stuff is to try and grant us some measure of safety?"

"Actually, yeah, that is the idea that we're hoping for, Tokoyami," Shouta said to the son of Tsukuyomi and Froppy, "You kids are still UA first years, so we in the UA staff really would rather that you not get thrown right in the path of any of Fine Wine's men who are still loose."

Inko and Hikari both nodded in understanding. "...Yeah," Inko said, "I still remember when Hikari, my dad, Strawberry short-bitch and I ran into Big Beef, then saw Entreri kill him."

"Given that Fine Wine turned out to have been the ultra-thot's dad, we at least can come up with a good reason as to why Entreri would kill Big Beef," Ragna said, drawing nods of agreement out of the rest of the class. Fuyuki nodded along as well, given that he knew the reason but didn't share any of the details that he personally had on the matter.

Getting his class to settle down, Shouta said, "Anyway, what I got from the top ten heroes tells me that all of the remnants of the Fine Wine gang had been able to regroup, into three separate factions each led by a notable individual." The underground hero then proceeded to put up three profile pictures of the men in question, one photo each per man. When he had finished, Shouta stood to the side so all of his students could see the photos of the three faction leaders.

When all of the students got a look at the photos, Hikari let out a shocked gasp as she covered her mouth. Hearing that, Fuyuki turned to look at his slender, nerdy-looking female classmate. "Is there a problem, Hikari?" Fuyuki asked. The son of Deku was still rather surprised when he returned to UA classes to see that the formerly plump and fatty Hikari was now more slender than his cousin Inko who had always been thin.

Pointing to the photo of the young adult man with crimson red spiky hair, and black horns growing out of his forehead, Hikari said, "That's...that's my older brother Makoto. Why is his photo up there?"

Shouta let out a troubled, resigned sigh. "...Similar to the late villain Ryumaru," Shouta began as he addressed Hikari, "Your older brother descended into villainy out of grief over the suicide of your sister Kolulu, and also aimed to kill my disgraced former student Mineta, who turned out to be Fine Wine. He had no idea until after the raid that captured Mineta that he had been working for the very man who had driven your sister to suicide."

"Let me guess, sir," Aizawa Shinso said to his godfather while holding up a hand, "Now that Hikari's older brother knows who Fine Wine is, he wants to get him out of prison so that he can kill the man."

Nodding in confirmation to his godson's guess, Shouta said, "Yes. That is indeed the case, young man." Eraserhead then proceeded to go on a bit about what the pro heroes and police had on each of the three faction leaders, then gave his students a very firm warning to refrain from interacting with any of them if they encounter them in the field, telling them that the pro heroes will deal with them.

"In case any of you encounter any of the faction leaders while out in the field while you're with your pro hero mentors," Shouta said, "Said pro hero mentors will tell you to stay back and let them handle the faction leaders. These men are all dangerous." All of the class 1-A students gave affirmative nods of agreement before Shouta proceeded to pass out lists to each of the students on which pro heroes they can get internships with.

When Fuyuki got the list that was specific for him, he was surprised but annoyed to see that all thirteen of the women in the hero course of UA's legendary year were interested in employing him as an intern. Fuyuki also saw that his dad Izuku was on the list, as was Uncle Katsuki. That was the limit, though. Overall, it was the most impressive list out of what anyone in the class had gotten; a total of fifteen internship offers, more than what any single other student in the class got.

Fuyuki, like every other student in class, had to pick his top three choices for which pro hero he wanted to intern with; those who got less than three had to order them to their preferences. The son of Deku gave a quick glance at the list before he picked his top three choices. Since he knew who all was on the list, he needed barely seconds to pick the three pro heroes interested in employing him as an intern as the three he was most interested in.

After all of the students were done picking which heroes interested in them respectively that they wanted to intern under, they handed their lists back to Eraserhead. The underground hero will review the choices made, then the next day he'll let his students know if any changes have to be made for one reason or another. A personal note that Shouta had was how he would be interested in the choices that Fuyuki had made in regards to which pro heroes interested in him as an intern he picked.

Shouta figured that his and Sekijiro's old students would also be interested.

"He picked Izuku, Baku-bro and Kinoko?" Kirishima said in a surprised tone.

The remainder of the legendary year had met with Shouta, Sekijiro, Hizashi and Ryo for a meeting to discuss how to manage running the internships while the mess of dealing with the three factions was going on. Inevitably, the subject of which three pro heroes interested in him that Fuyuki was most interested in popped up, at which point Shouta pulled out the lists that he got from his class and told the heroes of Fuyuki's picks.

"...Well out of everyone on the list given to him," Shouta began in a dry tone, "They're the only ones who never thought of him as guilty while he had been framed. They still believed in him, so I suspect that he's willing to believe in them in return."

The women all looked shocked, and in some cases heartbroken, that Fuyuki had no interest in working with them. Kinoko was the exception since Fuyuki did pick her, but she was still rather worried over the emotional well-being of someone barely a few months older than her own son Komaru. Looking up from the meeting table and to Shouta, Kyoka said, "Can't we just force him into working with one of us?"

Eraserhead gave Earphone Jack a dry look. "...Technically yes, but forcing Midoriya's son into doing that while he's still upset the way that he is right now will only lead to disaster. It would be best to just let him come to terms with things on his own, rather than to force it."

Kyoka, as well as the other women, had to deal with it that Fuyuki was still not in the mood to deal with most of them. They had to allow Fuyuki to come to terms with things on his own, hope that the work Ryo is doing with him will help him recover. It was hard on them, especially so for both Pony and even more especially Ochaco. But they had made their own beds on this one, so they had to lay in them.

The following day, the students of UA class 1-A received word on who all they picked that they would be able to intern with. Unsurprisingly, the students who had pro hero parents were able to pick from said parents and got accepted by them. As an example, this saw Toya go with his dad Todoroki, Samidare go with Fumikage, Tengoh go with Tenya, Aizawa (Shinso) go with Hitoshi, and Inko go with Bakugo.

Fuyuki ended up going with his dad Izuku.

Either way, the internships were a go now. On the first morning of the internships, Fuyuki was out on a patrol with Izuku. "So Fuyuki, how are things at school right now?" Izuku asked, trying to spark a casual conversation with his son.

"...One of those three faction leaders that Aizawa-sensei told us about is the older brother of my classmate Hikari," Fuyuki said. He gently shook his head. "Hard to believe that someone that I know is related to a villain."

Izuku nodded grimly in agreement. "...The case of Makoto Veldora is similar to another case that I'm not a big fan of how it turned out. I'm interested in trying to track down Makoto and bring him in alive."

"He may be difficult to capture and stop, given that he has a burning reason to get ahold of my schoolmate Ichigo's dad," Fuyuki said in a monotone.

Once again, the number one hero nodded. "The pro heroes and police will do what is necessary to protect Minoru Mineta. Despite what he's done, we won't simply just hand him over to a man that we know will kill him when he gets the chance."

Fuyuki nodded in understanding, knowing that the heroes and police will do their job. "I still find it hard to believe that Hikari's older brother is one of the three faction leaders that the police and pro heroes are looking to get a hold of." A look of mild curiosity crossed Fuyuki's face. "...I also can't believe how much weight Hikari had lost since I last saw her. I literally didn't know who she was until Tengoh told me."

Izuku was reminded on how one of his son's classmates had been beating herself up over her role in how Fuyuki was treated prior to his exoneration. Hikari seemed to be connected to a lot of what was going on as of late, enough for Izuku who had a nagging voice in the back of his mind tell him that keeping an eye on the slender nerdy girl would probably be a good idea in the long run. It's part of why Izuku had also offered internship to Hikari.

The horned girl also got internship offers from Ochaco, Pony and Bakugo; Hikari went with Bakugo the last time because she was essentially handed to him, not because he picked her. But this time he did extend an offer to Hikari, although she ended up going with Ochaco instead. At the very least, Izuku and his family would be able to keep a more direct eye on a high interest target that they need to protect.

Izuku then proceeded to explain to Fuyuki that over the course of the next few days, he would be showing him the ropes of what comes with the life of being a pro hero. He made no effort to hide the less pleasant stuff, since said less pleasant stuff had been forcing its way into the lives of pretty much everyone in Japan as of late. Fuyuki was not put off by it in the least, as he knew full well of the various dangers that even the pro heroes faced. Hell, Fuyuki himself was one of those dangers not too long ago, not that anyone aside from himself knew that.

But now the current danger facing everyone is in the form of three factions made up of the remnants of the Fine Wine gang, with each faction led by a different faction leader with his own plans and ways of thinking. What made them especially difficult was the fact two of them were actually quirkless and yet had even pro heroes of the legendary year of UA on their toes. And the third one is the older brother of one of his classmates.

The son of Deku had a rather strong feeling that things over the next couple of days were going to be getting interesting.

END, CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Author's notes;

Remember the metaphor I mentioned earlier? You know, about a cockroach still being able to live even if the head is cut off? Yeah, this is what I meant. The remnants of Mineta's gang had been able to gather up, but into three separate factions each headed by a different person who has different ways and ideals. Makoto, Takuya and Hochu will be playing important roles over the next couple of chapters, Makoto especially so, so keep your eyes peeled.

Also, yes. They are based off of characters from 'That time I got reincarnated as a slime'. Hey, Big Beef was based off of Uvogin from HunterXHunter.